


Writ in Water

by Argyle



Category: The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-02-07
Updated: 2005-02-07
Packaged: 2018-01-09 16:19:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1148092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argyle/pseuds/Argyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two friends spend a day by the riverbank.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Writ in Water

As April stretched into May and the land was a wash of tender blue flowers, the two friends walked together by the riverbank. The Rat often crafted small flutes and pens from dry reeds, though sometimes he and the Mole simply listened in contentment to the unaided piping of song. He knew how jolly it was to feel the sun across one’s back and the caress of the water upon one’s toes, soon deciding that it was high-time for the Mole to learn to swim.

“O, but must we really begin today?” the Mole asked rather pettishly. He wrapped his arms about him with a forced shiver. “The water seems a bit too cold.”

“Nonsense! Such things as the cold are all in the mind, you know. Yes, of course we must begin today, for there will be no others quite like it,” was the Rat’s reply. He tugged lightly but determinedly upon the Mole’s arm, loath to wait for him to finish packing the wicker basket with the tea things, though he knew by the warm scent of the biscuits and the rumbling that presently passed through his stomach that he would be yet more displeased to miss a meal. “Come!”

The Mole smiled.

Standing before the River, they tossed their jackets onto the grass and rolled their cuffs up, at once knowing that they would be soaked clear to their fur before the hour was up. The water was as cool as the Mole said it would be, perfect for a creature such as the Rat, who loved nothing more than to blink back the sun and swim with the passing of promises. Feeling confident in his abilities, he held his arms forward, palms spread wide across the Mole’s back, and helped his friend to remain afloat.

“Hold still, you silly ass!” The Rat knew that his voice would be muffled by the sounds of the current before it reached the Mole’s ears, though he continued, “Ah, that’s it. Shoulders back, yes, right there. We’ll have you out and about in no time at all.” He ignored the clipped contempt of the moorhens as the Mole reeled against him, thrashing arm and paw through the water and sinking until the Rat pulled him upward and reassured him that he was safe.

And so he was. The lesson advanced in slow steps, the Mole sinking and bobbing up again with a mouthful of water, the Rat holding him closely, and the two breathless with laughter.

When it was not yet mid-afternoon, the Mole pushed up from the bottom of the River and smiled. “I say, Rat, but I should love a bit of tea.”

“Tea? But we’ve not yet accomplished...” the Rat paused, seeing the glint in his friend’s eye. “O, all right, we shall certainly have some, if you would like.”

After running up and down the lane to dry off a bit, they sat together beneath the sweeping bough of an elm and unpacked the basket. There were gooseberry tarts and extra jam for thin slices of toast, watercress sandwiches and fresh butter, sweet breads and petit fours, and the Mole seemed determined to try everything in spite of the fact that the two had tasted the very same things the previous day, the day before that, and so on. He spoke with the ecstasy of one who has been permitted to sample the feast of the ages, and indeed, as he had tried very hard to please the Rat with his swimming, perhaps this was so.

“Wonderful, wonderful!”

The Rat was not one to complain. “Quite rightly so.” He settled comfortably against the trunk and began to hum a light tune, something that Toad taught him years before, and watched the leaves flutter with the breeze. The air was held with nothing if not possibility.

“Rat?”

“Hmm?” the Rat said absently, pouring tea from the flask. He glanced up, took a light sip from his cup, and then a deeper one as he waited for the Mole to respond. “What is it, then?” he asked at length.

“I was wondering whether you might...” The Mole hesitated and dropped his gaze. “O, it is nothing.”

“Nothing? Tut-tut, but now you’ve piqued my curiosity! Do not laugh, Moley! Ah, let’s see, I shall guess at it, then. You’re hoping to talk your way out of tomorrow’s lesson, hmm?” he scolded his friend fondly. “You ought to know by now that I’ll not hear of it!”

“O, no!” The Mole’s eyes were wide as he swallowed a mouthful of cake and strawberry cream. He dabbed at his mouth with a linen napkin. “I was merely hoping that you would tell me a story of the River,” he said shyly.

“I see, but where to begin,” the Rat mused, feeling offhandedly relieved. He stroked his chin in thought. They had been through each story a dozen times or more since the evening of their first meeting. As days became weeks, neither thought it odd that they should link arms as they walked before the embankment and the Rat wove a tapestry of fantastical words; neither thought to mention that the Rat composed as many scraps of poetry in honor of his friend as he did to commemorate the season or the sea. The Mole was happy to stand by his side. Time passes quickly for animals when they are happy, and so they were. The River hummed in and out of the minutes and hours, delighting in the sun as it splayed lightened laughter across its back and the Rat told its story. “Shall I begin with the mountains, travel through the heart of everything that is alive and full of memory, and then return to the depths of the Atlantic?”

“Well.” The Mole appeared to consider this. “Yes, certainly. Perhaps you might... start at the beginning...” he began, outwardly thrilled to have paid attention to what the Rat read to him by the fireside some weeks before, “and when you get to the end, stop.”

The Rat smiled and shook his head. “But, no! It doesn’t end -- not ever! -- as you well know. It moves up, up, up into the clouds, and down again with the rain, sweet-smelling and refreshed as it reaches the bright lindens of the springtime copse.”

“O, Ratty, do go on,” the Mole cried ardently.

The Rat nodded, thinking this to be quite reasonable as he settled against the tree, once more in his element. He spoke eagerly of Easterly winds and sighs of the South, rough Channel crossings and expeditions to the vast fields of ice in the far North. As his voice rose and fell, matching the rhythm of the waters which poured forth before them and tossed about last autumn’s leaves, he was scarcely aware that the Mole had drifted off to sleep, his head resting on the Rat’s lap. He was silent then. As the sun began to sink towards the horizon, he was content to listen to the sound of his friend’s breath, easy with a song all its own.


End file.
